Anyone else find the AI incredibly inept on supply convoys?

[PeteC]

I play a 2 person MP game. Always the 36 Campaign. Start with one player as England the other as Germany. Once US comes in the English player switches to the US.

It is August of 42. There are basically 3 fronts. Gibraltar (Rep Spain is Axis), Caucus/southern Turkey/Persia and China. The US troops in China and on the Gibraltar fronts are perpetually out of supply. The troops in Persia/Turkey are OK due to the US taking over Aleppo from France (no Vichy) and sending supplies to that port. However, England is not providing appropraite supplies and oil to Gibraltar and to China. Further they refuse to trade Gibraltar or Seville or any of the Chinese ports (the US takes the provinces but the computer gives them to England ) to the US so the US can not set up supply convoys. Also, my opponet went in as England and put the auto supply button on and later when we went in as England again we saw that the computer turned it off.

Quite frankly this is completely making this wonderful game utterly useless.

Anyone else having supply problems in their MP games? Any solutions? Thanks in advance,
Pete

[Hart Foundation]

Tried using "acceptall" cheat to trade those provinces?

[Tris]

Since its a two player game I suppose a crazy way to get it done might be to time out the game and then using the accept all commands make US and UK at Peace and then declare war on each other between US and UK.

Then stage an occupation of the provinces you want to trade having already vacated the UK forces.

Then make peace between UK and USA.

Then ally again and re-declare war on Germany.

Save game then retart.

There may be a way to edit the files, but thats beyond me.

There might be a file that has all the provinces listed that the UK can
trade in the diplomacy screen. If you can find that and add the province desgnations of Gibralter and whatever else you might be able to avoid all what I suggested.

I am presuming you can't trade these provinces because they do not show up in the trade screens as options for a trade.

I am curious what the amount of CONVOYS the UK has that it is not supplying all the routes enough? Try taking it off automatic control and cancelling some of the other supply routes and see if that does not bone up the Gibralter route. If it does then you simply don't have enough convoys.

Also if the USA forces are suposed to be supplied by the UK and you don't have a UK division stacked with them this could be the problem.

Try keeping one division of the UK stacked with any USA forces that require supply from the UK. Not positive that will help, but its worth a try.

[Gjerg Kastrioti]

Originally Posted by PeteC

It is August of 42. There are basically 3 fronts. Gibraltar (Rep Spain is Axis), Caucus/southern Turkey/Persia and China. The US troops in China and on the Gibraltar fronts are perpetually out of supply.

OK. First of all, as Tris said the autmoatic convoy ai doesn't do a good job of recognising supply and oil needs when allied forces are present. If there aren't any UK troops present, the convoy AI won't know that it needs to send supplies. So the best thing to do is take mil control of the UK and send British units to Gibraltar. The UK will never sell Gibraltar because it's a UK national province, and you can't buy national provinces.

Another possibility is that the UK simply doesn't have enough convoys owing to U-Boat attacks, in which case you're screwed.

In regards to China, if you attack out of allied controlled territory, it goes to an ally. I'm guessing the US attacked out of Hong Kong, so it all went to Britain. The US will need to stage its own landing at least one province away from British occupied territory to advance (land adjacent and it will just go the UK, as before). An alternative is for the US to purchase Hong Kong. It isn't a core, so it should be buyable for about 5000 of each resource + supplies and tech. You won't be able to buy any other ports, as they're only occupied and thus not for sale.

[PeteC]

Thanks all.

There is no attrition on the convoys so it is not an issue of not enough convoys. There are many Brit units with the US troops so that isn't the issue either. I just think the computer is very inconsistent.

I was not aware that when you attack out of a province that the conquered province goes to the owner of the originating province. That information really does help and explains why a US only amphib assault next to a Brit controlled Shanghai gave the province to the Brits. Moral of the story is to do all the original assaults with US troops.

Hopefully the computer will get smarter.

If anyone knows how to edit a file to make Gibraltar tradeable please let me know. That would ultimately solve the issue.

Thanks

[Gjerg Kastrioti]

Originally Posted by PeteC

If anyone knows how to edit a file to make Gibraltar tradeable please let me know. That would ultimately solve the issue.

Thanks

Gibraltar is province 348. In the saved game, find the entry for the UK - it should be under ENG. Find the entry for National Provinces. Remove 348 from national provinces for the UK, and the UK will agree to sell it, for a very high price. You may also wish to add 348 to the US national provinces, so the US can simply "demand territory" from the UK. Always keep a back up when editing, and don't use a program that converts it to a word file or something similar.

[PeteC]

Originally Posted by Gjerg Kastrioti

Gibraltar is province 348. In the saved game, find the entry for the UK - it should be under ENG. Find the entry for National Provinces. Remove 348 from national provinces for the UK, and the UK will agree to sell it, for a very high price. You may also wish to add 348 to the US national provinces, so the US can simply "demand territory" from the UK. Always keep a back up when editing, and don't use a program that converts it to a word file or something similar.

This worked perfectly. Thanks Just to be pushy I will ask one more question. What is the fastest way to determine a province's ID #. For example, I would like to do the same with Shanghai (currently the Brits have it and won't trade it). How I can I look up Shanghai in a file to find its #?

[Gjerg Kastrioti]

Originally Posted by PeteC

This worked perfectly. Thanks Just to be pushy I will ask one more question. What is the fastest way to determine a province's ID #. For example, I would like to do the same with Shanghai (currently the Brits have it and won't trade it). How I can I look up Shanghai in a file to find its #?

I use HOI 2 wiki

http://hoi2.nsen.ch/wiki/index.php/Reference_Material

You can also open province.csv

What to do depends on whether Shanghai is owned by Britain or just occupied.

Shanghai is 1237. Remove 1237 from the "controlledprovinces" section in the UK entry and add 1237 to the controlledprovinces section of the US.

If it's owned (ie, UK has annexed a puppet Nat Chi) transfer 1237 from both the "ownedprovinces" and "controlledprovinces" section.